Browsing by Author "Lin, Jo-wang"

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A Tenseless Analysis of Mandarin Chinese Revisited: A Response to Sybesma 2007
(2010-03-01)
Lin, Jo-wang
;
外國語文學系
;
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Sybesma (2007) argues for the existence of a syntactic T node in Chinese on the basis of general theoretical considerations and parallel empirical data from Dutch and Chinese. This reply shows that a tenseless analysis of Chinese is an equally viable alternative or even a better one. given sonic empirical problems that the tensed an has to face The tenseless analysis is backed up not only by its ability to explain the data in a more elegant way but also by syntactic facts that seem to be unrelated coincidences under a tensed analysis but are natural consequences under a tense less alternative
Chinese comparatives and their implicational parameters
(2009-03-01)
Lin, Jo-wang
;
外國語文學系
;
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
This paper argues that superiority comparatives in Mandarin Chinese are all phrasal comparatives that can be directly interpreted, and makes a new suggestion of taking the bC-phrase ('compare-phrase') to be an adjunct and one constituent, but with bC-shells. This syntactic analysis allows one to combine into one phrase various compared constituents that would otherwise not be analyzed as forming a phrase by themselves. Semantically, in extension of work by Heim as well as Bhatt and Takahashi, bC is taken to compare two sequences of arguments of a gradable predicate along the dimension given by that predicate. It is also suggested that comparatives across languages may be subject to three parameters: (i) argument-dependent comparison vs. non-argument dependent comparison, (ii) phrasal comparison vs. clausal comparison, and (iii) monoadic comparison vs. dyadic comparison.
The Order of Stage-level and Individual-level Relatives and Superiority Effects
(2008-10-01)
Lin, Jo-wang
;
外國語文學系
;
外國文學與語言學碩士班
;
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
;
Graduate Institute of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics
This paper argues that the two-layer modification of noun phrases as proposed in Larson & Takahashi (2004), Del Gobbo (2005), and Hsieh (2005) cannot account for the distribution of the order of stage-level and individual-level relatives in Mandarin. Alternatively, it is suggested that I-level relatives must occur closer to the head nouns than S-level relatives because I-level modifiers are arguments of "augmented nouns", whereas S-level modifiers are true adjuncts. It is always the case that adjuncts are base-generated outside arguments. It is also shown that relative clauses in Mandarin may be attracted to the specifier position of DP. When they move, however, they have to obey syntactic economy conditions such as Shortest. Consequently, the hierarchical positions of an S-level and I-level relative after the movement must preserve their original base-generated hierarchical order before movement.